Unbarred NEIPA Citra & Idaho 7.jpg
Love the can and the contents are pretty good, the two hops combine well to give intense juicy tropical stone fruit flavours, a very nice 7 % beer. 7.75/10.
"Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer."
-W.C.Fields
Dark beer night tonight, starting with a Thwaites Champion Mild 3.2% 440ml can picked up from a discount supermarket (four for £3.49) and a 50cl bottle of Guinness Extra Stout 4.2% from the same source. I was thirsty, wasn't I. Both beers hit the spot, to be fair. Nothing wrong with the canned mild, but perhaps the Guinness didn't live up to the memory of when this used to be bottle conditioned. That's memories for you.
Next up was one I've been looking forward to:
Verdant Don't Fear the Ferryman Imperial Stout 10.5% 440ml. £8.50 from Beer Central. The can adds helpfully, “I am addicted to the darkness between worlds...”, and to be fair this is a very, very dark beer. I can't remember seeing a beer so black, even the head is dark (not black, but very dark). Interestingly, the ingredients listed in several languages make no mention of hops. I couldn't find mention of this beer on Verdant's website, but this blurb on an online beer seller's website suggests brewery origins: Jet black with aromas of dark fruits and smooth caramel. A soft, sweet, silky mouthfeel leads to hints of burnt biscuits, raisin notes and subtle coffee ending in a bitter dark chocolate finish. Why so shy about the hops? This is a very enjoyable beer, almost too easy to drink, though it packs a whoomph; perhaps just a little lacking in complexity, would be my only criticism (and there has to be one, doesn't there).
By way of comparison, I finished off with a Harveys Imperial Extra Double Stout 9.0% 275ml, which is almost as dark, though the head is creamy by comparison with the Verdant. Being bottle conditioned, and probably containing hops, too, this is probably a little unfair on Verdant, whose beer was certainly up there with the best imperial stouts (that I have tried, he adds hastily). This bottle of the imperial extra had a bit of umami on opening – there's always something different with this bottle-conditioned beer. There's also a hint of red wine, although the beer is not aged in wine barrels as far as I know; but Harveys do describe the beer as “sweet and sour”, and there is certainly something about this beer that is unlike others of its type.
Come On You Hatters!
I started the week with my last five litre keg of Black Sheep Bitter - it was pretty good considering its best before date was 2 January!
Wednesday: Salt Tram Double NEIPA 8.0%. One of a consignment from the brewery four months ago - how time flies when you're having fun! This was a well made DIPA with appropriate heft to match the 8.0% inscribed on the 440ml can, which cost £3.50. Juicy and smooth it says, and that's what it does. I try to keep an open mind about beers like this, but can't raise huge amounts of enthusiasm about them.
Thursday I paid my second visit to the new local bottle shop, Roscoe Road Liquor Store (see here #897) which opened three weeks ago, and the remainder of this week's beers came from there - it saves putting them away in my cupboard under the stairs only to get them out again.
Sam Smiths Organic Pale 5.0% in a 355ml bottle for £2.50 was pleasant enough, though a little too agressively fizzy for my taste.
Burnt Mill Awake Coffee Maple Porter 5.6% has had its chance - see here #527 in the Bloody Awful Beer of the Week thread - say no more.
Friday: Burning Sky Out of Vogue West Coast Pale 5.4% was £4.50 and quite a decent drink, though not the best of this type that I've had. Not enough of a bitter finish for me, but at least it wasn't juicy and smooth. (Cascade, chinook, simcoe and centennial, since you ask.)
Northern Monk Shepherd's Warning English Red IPA 6.3% was reduced to £3 for the 440ml can because it was well past its best before date (3 December 2020!). Hops were jester, olicana, opus and admiral, though they were very much dialled down in the mix, possibly because of the age of the beer. I won't criticise the beer as it was sold as out of date, but I'll mention the can, which had a peel-back label which was full of information and artworks on the inside (see photo). This beer was produced under Northern Monk's Patrons scheme, which fosters Community, Collaboration and Creation.
Saturday: Anspach & Hobday Sea Salt & Chilli Stout 6.8% was £4.80 for a 440ml can. This is one of those breweries that give their beers names that are purely the names of a category, which may be intended to hark back to the good old days when every brewery made a bitter, mild and stout but gives the unfortunate impression, in this day and age, that they are seriously up themselves. I suppose they can't win, because if they had called it Uncontrollable Occurrence, Don't Fear the Ferryman or Grainsley Harriot I'd accuse them of pretentiousness or dreadful punning. Anyway, the beer. It's well made and subtle, which is just as well because you really don't want too much salt or chilli in your beer. Well, I don't. Sea salt, Scotch Bonnet chillies and "a small addition of cacao nibs" - also bramling cross and summit hops.
...and finally, Lupulin Brewing Sophistry IPA which has been imported from the USA; the can says 8.0% abv and 1 pint (US), but a small importer's label on the base says 7.3% and 47.3cl, so it looks like some of the alcohol has disappeared on its way over the ocean. The sticker also mentions the best before date, which was 4 March 2021, which was why a) it was only £3 and b) I won't be giving a description of the drinking qualities of this beer. Suffice to say it's an IPA with citra and amarillo, with a grain bill which reads very strangely to English eyes: 2-Row (which could be anything from a lager malt to maris otter), white wheat (both malted and unmalted), flaked rye and a pilsner malt. I hope the brewers know that sophistry is not a good thing (it means deception), and is nothing to do with sophistication (refinement) - though to be fair both words come from the same root.
Last edited by sheffield hatter; 03-04-2021 at 20:30.
Come On You Hatters!
And now for something completely different: Gold Label No.1 Barley Wine 7.5%. I'm a bit of a fan of barley wine, and this one was originally brewed in Sheffield (see this brief history of the beer from Ron Pattinson), so deserves its time in the spotlight. Though after Tennants being acquired by Whitbread in 1961, which the beer somehow survived, and the latter's brewing arm more recently by AB InBev, I was a little concerned as to what sort of brew had been concocted at their beer factory near Preston.
First impressions were not good, as the aroma, flavour and carbonation were reminiscent of bad canned beers of the 1970s. Swirling it to remove some of the gas, and allowing it to warm up a little, helped to make it more palatable, but it's never going to surpass Coniston Brewery's No.9 in my barley wine hit parade. Reading the description of the origin of the beer gives a bit of insight into why this might be: “It wasn’t a quick beer to produce. After primary fermentation it was racked into 54-gallon hogsheads and left to mature in a cellar for six to 12 months. When it was considered ready, different batches of beer were mixed to produce the perfect blend.” This is not likely to be a process to find favour with the international accountants in charge of the modern brewing factory. Ron Pattinson describes it as a revolutionary beer, and revolutions need putting down. Anyway, having bought a 33cl four-pack for £6, I have three more of these to get through. I could try putting a shot of whisky in the next one, to bring it closer to the original 10.6% abv; that might be interesting. Or at least different.
Come On You Hatters!
Aah, I have fond memories of working in the Nelson, Didsbury, and living there for a year in the late 70s. One afternoon an old boy came into the lounge (it still had a lounge and vault back then) and asked for a pint(!) of Gold Label - I poured two bottles in a pint glass and served the third on the side, the boss saying 'keep an eye on him jim', I think for medical reasons rather than trouble, but he finished the drink and wobbled happily off. Not sure what the abv was but ~9% sounds right at the time, though we also carried Stingo, so that may have been that one. I was gobsmacked, and was talking about this legend for days..!
You say that, but some of the old timers in The Three Chimneys twenty five to thirty years back would leave a table crammed with Gold Label bottles at the end of the evening. Not that they drank 'em out of a pint glass, but they would leave clutching a few more for afters.
"At that moment I would have given a kingdom, not for champagne or hock and soda, or hot coffee but for a glass of beer" Marquess Curzon of Kedlestone, Viceroy of India.
Well, tried the whisky tipped into my beer glass tonight, and it certainly made a difference. Not only does the whisky boost the alcohol content of the beer (from a mundane 7.5% to, by my reckoning, around 9.8%), but the additional flavour helps to mask that made-in-a-factory aroma that the Gold Label brings. Quite a success!
Come On You Hatters!